Long lines, flight cancellations upend travel at Atlanta airport
Hourslong waits and flight cancellations continued at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Tuesday, as the partial government shutdown and storms wreak havoc on air travel.
Security lines reached nearly two hours long again Tuesday morning, according to wait times posted by the Atlanta airport — though actual wait times can be even longer.
And more than 150 Atlanta flights were canceled by early morning, according to FlightAware.com.
Delta Air Lines canceled more than 225 flights for Tuesday across its network by early morning, as the airline recovers from a storm that hit its Atlanta hub the previous day. Some Delta flights were also delayed early Tuesday morning with a ground stop in place to temporarily halt some departures headed to Atlanta.
Delta had 675 flights cancellations across its system Monday. More than 500 flights were canceled Monday at Hartsfield-Jackson on Delta and other airlines.
Tuesdays are typically one of the slower travel periods of the week, but that has been upended by the weather disruptions and the partial government shutdown that has exacerbated long security waits.
The shutdown has left Transportation Security Administration officers working without pay for weeks. As some of them are forced to find other work to pay their bills, that’s causing staffing shortages at checkpoints.
Amid the short-staffing, one of the four security checkpoints in the domestic terminal has been closed during some of the busiest periods.
The Lower North checkpoint was still closed early Tuesday mornings — driving longer lines at the remaining checkpoint, according to the airport’s posted wait times.
Airline CEOs sent an open letter to Congress on Sunday calling on it to resolve the shutdown.
They said in the letter that checkpoint wait times of “2, 3 and even 4 hours have been reported,” and airlines are trying to mitigate disruption by holding flights for late passengers and handling rebookings.
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